“The rain still hasn’t stopped today…” Early in the morning, Qin Sang heard her parents chatting as she got up.
She instinctively looked out at the sky. Though it was early morning, the thick curtain of rain completely blocked the sunlight, making the whole world seem unnervingly dark. Fa Ge had only tallied the housing situation yesterday, but looking at today’s unrelenting downpour, it probably wouldn’t be long before their village would be welcoming evacuees.
“Ah-choo!”
A sudden sneeze from Mother Qin snapped Qin Sang back to attention. She looked at the industrial thermometer hanging on the wall—it had dropped from over ninety degrees to just over forty.
The rain had swept away the oppressive heat of the high-temperature days.
“Ugh, this weather really doesn’t feel like forty-something degrees—everything’s so damp.” Mother Qin grabbed a bottle of medicated oil, rubbed some on her nose, and started grumbling.
Aside from the flood threat, the other major issue brought by the days of rain was the humidity. Everything was wet. Especially since they were in southern China, mold was already starting to appear in the house. Online, people were even posting photos of mushrooms growing in their homes.
The only good news was that the cockroaches hadn’t multiplied with the dampness—the mutant insects had already been wiped out over and over again.
“Mom, Dad, let’s clean up the upstairs today.”
Father and Mother Qin had no objections. They all knew that soon, strangers would be moving into their home.
Sure enough, three more days passed, and the rainfall still hadn’t lessened. The low-lying areas of Huashan City were already flooded. Some people moved to high-rise buildings, while others relocated to nearby villages on higher ground.
Most of these people relocating to surrounding villages were the ones who had moved from other places before the apocalypse.
They had already moved once—and before they could even settle down for a few months, they were being forced to move again. Naturally, complaints began to surface.
——
And so, that day, the village received its first wave of evacuees.
They came by rubber raft from the flooded areas. Once they reached dry land, they had to get off and continue on foot. With the rain hammering down, the walk was excruciatingly difficult.
Qin Sang stood on her balcony, watching through the glass as the crowd trudged painfully through the rain. The downpour stung their skin. The only mercy was that their luggage was stored in their spatial storage—they only needed to make it to their destination.
“Sang Sang, I’m going downstairs to wait for them. You and your mom open the doors upstairs.”
Their house had seven floors total. The first through third floors were for the family. The fourth had previously been rented to Qu Meijing, but after the insect swarm, she had moved out and was now staying in the village office building. Qin Sang had only registered the fourth through sixth floors for evacuees. The seventh was kept for the family, and the first through third weren’t being given up either.
“I’ll go through the basement to Da Linzi’s house and open his door.”
Xu Lin’s entire house had been registered for evacuees. His supplies had already been moved to Qin Sang’s space. She went over to unlock the door and leave the keys behind. After that, the connecting basement door between their two houses would also be locked.
The rest of the village was also moving, whether they liked it or not, after seeing the notice in the village group.
“Uncle Qin, this group is being housed in your building.”
Fa Ge arrived with the evacuees about half an hour later. There were quite a few—roughly seventy or eighty people, at a glance.
Qin Sang watched from behind and spoke up: “Why so many?”
There was also a Management Bureau officer accompanying them. The officer glanced at Qin Sang but said nothing, just urging the crowd to quickly file into the building.
Qin Sang was a bit exasperated. Cramming that many people in—she had no idea how the Management Bureau planned to arrange things. She decided not to bother. After all, the floors her family lived on were all locked.
The evacuees, drenched and miserable, burst into noisy commotion once they got inside the stairwell.
Father Qin simply shoved Fa Ge and told him to handle it. Qin Sang had already gone back inside.
“How is it?” Mother Qin asked as soon as her daughter returned.
Qin Sang shook her head. “About a third of them have spatial powers. And about half of that third have already contracted spirit beasts.”
Mother Qin: “So they’re pretty capable, then.”
Qin Sang: “I’m just worried they might start conflicts in the building and end up using their spirit beasts to fight.”
Exactly. Ever since she’d known that strangers would be moving in, this had been her concern. Because now, nobody was ordinary anymore—everyone either had a spirit beast or a spatial power. Combat ability had increased, and so had the potential for destruction. If a fight broke out inside their building, the house definitely wouldn’t hold up.
Father Qin came back shortly after, shaking his head and muttering that there might be trouble.
The commotion didn’t quiet down until evening, around dinner time.
Now, aside from voices, the building was filled with the sounds of children shouting and crying, and elderly people coughing.
Hmm… how to put it. Qin Sang felt like just yesterday she had been living in an apocalypse of insect plagues, but now she suddenly felt as though she had returned to the pre-apocalyptic world.
“Finally quiet.”
Mother Qin couldn’t help but complain, then called her daughter and husband over for dinner.
“Ah, I should have kept the fourth floor for ourselves too.”
Listening to the occasional sound of running footsteps from the fourth floor, Mother Qin started grumbling again. The fourth floor had always been rented out, but only to unmarried white-collar workers. She never expected that having kids living upstairs would be so exasperating.
Qin Sang: “I’ll go up later and tell them to keep it down.”
She wasn’t afraid of trouble. The house was temporarily lent to the Management Bureau for disaster relief—it wasn’t a paid rental. If they annoyed her, they could all pack up and leave.
But before Qin Sang could even head upstairs, someone from above came down and knocked on their door. She opened it and found a familiar face.
“I knew I wasn’t mistaken earlier. Miss Qin, do you still remember me?”
Qin Sang looked at the young man standing before her, who had aged a few years, and nodded slightly. She hadn’t expected to see this person again. It was none other than the young man from the four-generation family she had helped register when she volunteered on South Island. That family had eight members: two elderly, two middle-aged, two young adults, and two infants.
“Hello. What a coincidence.”
Meeting someone she knew was a bit surprising, but that was all. She looked at him through the iron gate’s bars, making no move to unlock it and invite him in.
Seeing this, the young man’s expression turned odd, but he eventually left.
Mother Qin asked, “You know him?”
Qin Sang shook her head and nodded at the same time, briefly explaining his background in a few sentences.
“Then it’s nothing. We’re not going out much these days anyway. Your dad didn’t close the stairwell door on the third floor earlier, which is how he got down to knock.”
Hearing that, Father Qin quickly said, “I’ll go close the third-floor door.”
Qin Sang shook her head. “No need. I’ll do it.”
With that, she paid attention to the sounds from the stairwell. After confirming no one was there, she opened the iron gate.
The moment the gate opened, Qin Sang suddenly felt a sense of danger. It was strong—the same instinct that had saved her countless times during the insect swarms.
Without a second thought, she channeled her energy to cover her entire body. At the same time, she immediately scanned the stairwell.
The stairwell looked empty, but something felt off. She enhanced her vision with energy—and this time, she spotted something.
On the damp floor of the stairwell, there were several inconspicuous specks of light. They were invisible to the naked eye, but once energy was applied to her vision, they stood out like beacons in the dark.
What were they?
Cautious, Qin Sang didn’t approach them. Instead, she took out her camera and snapped a few pictures.
At first glance, the photos showed nothing unusual. Only when magnified a hundred times could the specks be seen. And in the camera, they didn’t appear as lights—just tiny, barely noticeable dark dots. Unless you were deliberately looking, no one would find them.
Strange.
Qin Sang was now certain these specks had been brought in by that young man. Whether intentionally or not, she couldn’t say.
But either way, her instincts told her something was off.
She put the camera back into her space and took out a small glass bottle. Again, she didn’t approach the specks directly. Instead, she shaped her energy into a pair of tweezers and carefully picked up each speck, one by one, placing them into the bottle.
The process was extremely draining. The specks were so tiny that the energy tweezers had to be incredibly precise to succeed.
An hour later, she had collected all the specks into the glass bottle. She sealed it tightly and set it aside.
She didn’t even want to put it into her space.
While picking up the specks, she had confirmed they were living organisms—but in a dormant state.
And besides the ones at the entrance, there were more scattered throughout the stairwell.
Qin Sang took out a flamethrower and blasted the entire stairwell. Then she checked again with energy-enhanced vision, including both the front iron gate and the stairwell gate.
Only after everything was cleared did she return inside.
Her parents had watched all her actions from inside. Now they finally asked what was going on.
Qin Sang didn’t keep them guessing—she laid out everything she’d discovered.
When they learned that those invisible specks were living organisms, both of them were stunned speechless.
And what she said next made them even more alarmed.
Because when the evacuees had arrived earlier, both Father Qin and Qin Sang had been outside watching. Afterward, they had come back inside without paying any attention to specks or dots.
So a thorough inspection began.
All three of them covered themselves in energy, enhanced their vision, and went over the entire house inch by inch—even checking the soles of their shoes.
Fortunately, the result was good. There was nothing suspicious in the house.
After confirming they were safe, Qin Sang immediately reported her findings to Xu Lin and Bureau Chief Qian.
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